Tag #155327 - Interview #103735 (Nikolay Schwartz Biography)

After the wedding the newly weds settled down in my father’s house that he received from his parents. This was a solid spacious houses made of air bricks. Most houses in Subcarpathia were built from this construction material. Straw was finely cut and mixed with clay. Then they formed bricks from this mixture and dried them in the sun. These were good light bricks with good heat insulation. There were few houses of the local rich families and official buildings built from bricks. Our house had a sheet iron roof. There was a mezuzah by the front door of our house like in other Jewish houses. There were 3 rooms and a kitchen in the house. One room was my parents’ bedroom, one room was the sons’ room and another one was the daughters’ room. There were wood stoked stoves heating the rooms. Coal was not common in Subcarpathia. It was shipped from far away while there were woods all around.